Friday, February 22, 2013

If you could split Rickey Henderson in two, you’d have two FULL SHARES!.

Rickey Henderson is the ####### greatest for many reasons. The following anecdote is further proof of said.

from Long Shot by Mike Piazza

Rickey got his, there’s no denying that: made over $44million in his time as a player. But Rickey knew that not everyone in the game would get their shot to make millions, and Rickey didn’t know what kind of #### people had going on at home, so maybe Rickey figured people went through some of the same #### that Rickey came through — ’cause Rickey had it kinda tough. So when Rickey can vote to spread some wealth around to those who don’t have his talents (and really, who does?), he can’t see a single damn reason not to do so.

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I know it's inflation and that baseball inflation has been way higher than the CPI ever since free agency started, but that still blows my mind. It wasn't that long ago that Rickey was still playing, and his career earnings are on the level of Angel Pagan's next contract.

During Rickey's first few years, Carl Yastrzemski was still active. Yaz made 1.9 million during the years bb-ref has contract data. Filling in the missing years and assume he made similar money to the years surrounding them, I can guess about 200K for 1976 and 1978, and 400K per year for 1980-1983, for a grand total of 4 million. The going rate for 1 year of middle relief.

Funny... in his prime I always though of Rickey as a pain but towards the end of his career and since he has really seemed impressive. The fact he kept playing long past his prime because he just loved to play, the story above, it seems clear he is a guy who just loves baseball and this story makes one think he has his priorities right. Nice to see.

My Rickey story (which I've posted here before, although not for several years):

I was at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena in the summer of 2003, when Ricky was playing for the Dodgers. While I was out front waiting for my car, a Dodger-blue Escalade rolls up, all tricked out in chrome. Out bounces Rickey, clad from head-to-toe in Dodger blue, including a blue forearm cast. The valet opens the passenger door to reveal a tall, beautiful woman, dressed in a white linen pants suit with a Dodger-blue belt and accessories. Two cute little kids then tumble out of the backseat, likewise outfitted in the colors of the home team.

I love that the dude apparently felt such affinity for a team that gave him less than 1% of his career ABs, and I like to think that the used-car lots and thrift shops of Oakland, New York, Anaheim, Seattle, Toronto, Boston, and San Diego contain appropriately colored versions of Rickey's duds and rides.

I like to imagine Rickey pulling up next to the clubhouse attendant on the last day of the season, rolling down his window a few inches, and handing the guy $50,000. Then pulling up next to John Olerud and doing the same.

The stories I always heard of him in the Atlantic League match - paying clubhouse dues for team-mates, springing for better spreads, etc...small stuff in the grand scheme of things, but when the rest of the team was making a thousand dollars or so a month, it had to make a difference.

And - the man loved bananas...one weekend series on Long Island, we went through 25 pounds of them, and I never saw anyone else eating them but Rickey.

Perhaps you saw the photograph that was picked up by newspapers around the country: Henderson gently holding a crying nine-year-old girl named Erin States. The caption probably told you that Henderson, on his first trip to Oakland since the Athletics traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays on July 31, was reassuring Erin that her favorite player had not forgotten her.

I love that Rickey's being looked back on with such fondness now. During his playing days — and especially around his I'm-the-greatest-of-all-time speech — the media was incredibly unfair to him. He was a black kid who grew up in the heart of Oakland and he talked like it, and the predominantly older white sports media took that to mean he was stupid. They would put him next Nolan Ryan and his 5000th K on the same day and say how much better a person Ryan was than Rickey because Ryan gave the "Aww, shucks" speech that you're supposed to give. Ryan worked hard, Rickey was "naturally gifted." Ryan never missed a start, Rickey was always dinged up. Ryan's clothes were understated, Rickey loved nice threads. Ryan wanted to be the first million/per player, but it was Henderson was got criticized for selfish holdouts. And, oh yes, Ryan was white and Rickey was black.

I ####### love me some Rickey. I never get tired of reading about Rickey.

Me too. I think it has a lot to do with a very simple generational shift. Folks who were kids back when Rickey was at his peak are now sportswriters. And to speak for everyone in the world who is roughly my age, we all loved Rickey. His skill, his style, his charisma, his love of baseball, just his essential Rickey-ness were entirely obvious to every one of us. There are no exceptions to this statement. So now that people who loved Rickey unreservedly are sportswriters, the picture being drawn of him has changed.

I loved Rickey growing up at well. Part of the issue was his way of speaking like was mentioned earlier. He was also given crap early in his career for not hitting with more power and trying to steal bases just to pad his stats. I have Goose Gossage's book somewhere and he rips Henderson for being selfish and lazy.

As for the other question, it was Rickey Henderson. I really pretty much had my way with him. We get along fine now, but I thought he was a hot dog at the time he was playing. I didn't like that, I didn't like his showboating. So I pretty much struck him out every time.

(Editor's note: Henderson had 11 plate appearances vs. Gossage, with nine at-bats. Henderson had no hits, two walks and struck out nine times.

I love Rickey stories. He is one of my favorite players ever, and I really appreciate the love he has for the game. I completely understand players who view baseball as a job and not a passion, and I don't fault them for it. But that means when you get someone so great who really does simply love playing, it adds a little something.

During his playing days — and especially around his I'm-the-greatest-of-all-time speech — the media was incredibly unfair to him. He was a black kid who grew up in the heart of Oakland and he talked like it, and the predominantly older white sports media took that to mean he was stupid. They would put him next Nolan Ryan and his 5000th K on the same day and say how much better a person Ryan was than Rickey because Ryan gave the "Aww, shucks" speech that you're supposed to give. Ryan worked hard, Rickey was "naturally gifted." Ryan never missed a start, Rickey was always dinged up. Ryan's clothes were understated, Rickey loved nice threads. Ryan wanted to be the first million/per player, but it was Henderson was got criticized for selfish holdouts. And, oh yes, Ryan was white and Rickey was black.

To be fair, Rickey did say some stupid things early in his career that gave credence to the thought he was selfish and thinking only about himself. He didn't help with the "today I am the greatest of all-time" speech when he broke the SB record. At the time, he was perceived as being an arrogant airhead, and I think rightly so. But we look back now and he's a colorful character, and I think rightly so. The game needs arrogant airheads.

Rickey was a god to me, growing up in the Oakland area in the 80s and early 90s.

Probably my most joyous baseball moment ever as a young kid growing up in Oakland was when he was traded back to the team in 1989. His previous A's years were before my time period, so I knew he had been an A but it seemed like a crazy dream. When they got him back, and then that 1989 postseason to follow when he was possibly the single most destructive force ever, was amazing.

Rickey got his, there’s no denying that: made over $44million in his time as a player. But Rickey knew that not everyone in the game would get their shot to make millions, and Rickey didn’t know what kind of #### people had going on at home, so maybe Rickey figured people went through some of the same #### that Rickey came through — ’cause Rickey had it kinda tough. So when Rickey can vote to spread some wealth around to those who don’t have his talents (and really, who does?), he can’t see a single damn reason not to do so.

if it was not for the one 'his' and one 'he', I would have assumed this was a direct quote from Rickey.

I love Rickey stories. He is one of my favorite players ever, and I really appreciate the love he has for the game. I completely understand players who view baseball as a job and not a passion, and I don't fault them for it. But that means when you get someone so great who really does simply love playing, it adds a little something.

I saw Rickey once when he was with the Newark Bears. He wasn't in the starting lineup the day we were there - it was a day game after a night game - but during the game, he went out to the makeshift batting cage behind the centerield fence to take a little extra BP in case he was called upon to pinch-hit.

Think about that: a 44-year-old future Hall of Famer playing in the minor leagues, and he still wants to go get some extra work in.

His public image, yeah. But he was pretty much a favorite of teammates for about two decades, and completely beloved in his time as a Padre. You'd think the beat writers who hung around locker rooms and team buses for a living would have picked up on that.

"I’m about to give you one of my all-time favorite statistics: Rickey Henderson walked 796 times in his career LEADING OFF AN INNING. Think about this again. There would be nothing, absolutely nothing, a pitcher would want to avoid more than walking Rickey Henderson to lead off an inning. And yet he walked SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY SIX times to lead off an inning.
He walked more times just leading off in an inning than Lou Brock, Roberto Clemente, Luis Aparicio, Ernie Banks, Kirby Puckett, Ryne Sandberg and more than 50 other Hall of Famers walked in their entire careers...I simply cannot imagine a baseball statistic more staggering."[93]

During his playing days — and especially around his I'm-the-greatest-of-all-time speech — the media was incredibly unfair to him. He was a black kid who grew up in the heart of Oakland and he talked like it, and the predominantly older white sports media took that to mean he was stupid. They would put him next Nolan Ryan and his 5000th K on the same day and say how much better a person Ryan was than Rickey because Ryan gave the "Aww, shucks" speech that you're supposed to give. Ryan worked hard, Rickey was "naturally gifted." Ryan never missed a start, Rickey was always dinged up. Ryan's clothes were understated, Rickey loved nice threads. Ryan wanted to be the first million/per player, but it was Henderson was got criticized for selfish holdouts. And, oh yes, Ryan was white and Rickey was black.

And yet Erin States named her kid ...

... Ryan.

*sigh*

(Judging from Google, her married name appears to be Hoy. Surely she could've at least named the boy "Dummy.")

Me too. I think it has a lot to do with a very simple generational shift. Folks who were kids back when Rickey was at his peak are now sportswriters. And to speak for everyone in the world who is roughly my age, we all loved Rickey. His skill, his style, his charisma, his love of baseball, just his essential Rickey-ness were entirely obvious to every one of us. There are no exceptions to this statement. So now that people who loved Rickey unreservedly are sportswriters, the picture being drawn of him has changed.

True, but my Dad (who is now 84), was certainly of the older generation, and he loved Rickey Henderson. He's an Athletics fan, but Rickey was always his favorite player, whether he was playing for Oakland or not.

1)Rickey was the first player that I was able to call a HOF career on. Most guys, yeah, they're good, and then you wake up one day and they have 3000 hits or 500 HRs or whatever and you, go, yeah, I guess this guy's a HOFer. But Rickey - in 1980 at only age 21 - he batted over .300, walked 100 times, stole 100 bases, and I absolutely knew without a doubt that Lou Brock's records were going down and that I was watching a future Hall of Famer. I eagerly anticipated watching his whole career unfold knowing that I was watching this movie from the beginning and not coming into it somewhere in the middle.

2)Rickey made it possible for things to happen that just don't normally happen on a baseball field. In 1985, for example, the Yankees had a textbook lineup structure - Rickey leading off, Willie Randolph (good eye, good bat control, bunter, etc.) batting second, Mattingly third, Winfield cleanup. But Rickey was so good at leading off an inning by getting on, and then getting himself into scoring position without the need for a sacrifice bunt or hit-and-run type play - that there were times that season where Billy Martin just eliminated the need for a "number two" type hitter - why give up an out when you don't need to - and moved Mattingly into the #2 spot with Winfield batting third. Small wonder that Mattingly drove in 145 runs that season and Rickey scored 146 - two great offensive performers in their absolute primes.

3)There are 4 players in ML history with over 2000 walks. Three of them - Ruth, Williams, Bonds - may have had very good batting eyes which accounted for part of it - but pitchers were also terrified of them and often intentionally walked them or did the "unintentional" intentional walk where the pitcher just refused to throw anything over the plate. On the other hand, nobody ever really intentionally walked Rickey. The last place a pitcher wanted to see him was on base. So Rickey's 2000 walks really had to be earned without Rickey getting any free help from the pitchers.

Yeah! 'Cause, as we all know, cute little offhand jokes about disabled people are a freaking riot!

I was going to make a "Chipsa" joke, but then I thought about the role of snack foods in America's obesity problem, especially among children (our most precious national resource), and the strain it's putting on our troubled health care system, and I felt ashamed and did some volunteer work for orphaned pot-bellied pigs with dyslexia.

Small wonder that Mattingly drove in 145 runs that season and Rickey scored 146 - two great offensive performers in their absolute primes.

Mattingly drove in Henderson 56 times in 1985. That is a ridiculous total. I haven't exactly made an exhaustive search, but I've only found one larger number in recent history (excepting a player driving himself in, of course) - and I bet nobody can guess what it is.

Mattingly drove in Henderson 56 times in 1985. That is a ridiculous total. I haven't exactly made an exhaustive search, but I've only found one larger number in recent history (excepting a player driving himself in, of course) - and I bet nobody can guess what it is.

Mattingly drove in Henderson 56 times in 1985. That is a ridiculous total. I haven't exactly made an exhaustive search, but I've only found one larger number in recent history (excepting a player driving himself in, of course) - and I bet nobody can guess what it is.

I always liked the quote about Rickey could have two HOF careers. I just looked this up, and ater 1990 (amazingly, the last year he received any MVP votes), he went on to get on base 2200+ times, score 1000 runs, and steal 470 bases with a 115 OPS+; roughly an OBP-heavy version of Reggie Sanders' career, and that was the downside of his career.

Where are you guys looking this up? I want to check my own guess (Tommy Herr-Vince Coleman).

It's a bit of a pain - B-R has a breakdown of who a player drove in for a single season at the top of his Game Log page for that season. Sadly, there's no equivalent breakdown the other direction, so you have to look up the RBI man.

Herr-Coleman is a good guess, but also incorrect. Herr's teammate RBIs in 1985 were split quite nicely between Coleman and McGee, with 35 each.

I think it's hard to put up an unbelievable figure in this category when playing for a really good offense. You'd think Rollins-Howard would do really well, for instance, but there were too many times when Utley had already driven in Rollins before Howard got there. (Utley-Rollins and Howard-Utley also do all right, but none of them got as high as 40.)

Rickey had all sorts of appeal. The crazy batting stance, and the triple digit steals did it at first. When I had a table top baseball game and started discovering how awesome it was when you had players that drew lots of walks, that really made me appreciate him. Then when he started hitting with power, too...

This possibility occurred to me as well. A plurality of Tejada's 150 RBI in 2004 actually went to Brian Roberts, with a healthy-but-not-historic 38.

Helton and...someone? Or Galarraga and Bichette?

No Rockies, at least not that I found. I think the late '90s teams had too many RBI guys for a specific one of them to drive in another specific a high percentage of the time.

Wouldn't the winner have to be Gehrig driving in Ruth?

Maybe, at least for career total (although the records don't go back that far). But the highest single-season numbers I've found have all involved run scorers who didn't drive themselves in nearly as often as Ruth did.

I still can't get over that story. The Rickey! I remember from his playing days was a brash, outspoken, egotistical player (though I loved him anyway), and while I don't doubt much of his reputation back then was media-driven, I'd like to think that his relationship with the little girl was the turning point into becoming the humbled man we've come to admire even more. If someone adored you as much as that girl adored Rickey, wouldn't that humble the hell out of you, too?

Maybe, at least for career total (although the records don't go back that far). But the highest single-season numbers I've found have all involved run scorers who didn't drive themselves in nearly as often as Ruth did.

Did they have a .474 OBA?

Although, in that regard, he was more impressive in that part of the '20s before Gehrig.